A Flight of Fancy with Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Witches #01

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coverBOOM! Studios and Archaia comics bring the work of Jim Henson to life with the The Storyteller. Based on the beloved show, (and one of Henson’s personal favorite projects) the comics will continue where the show left off, with the Storyteller and his dog curled up by a warm fire, ready to tell us a tale. This particular series is called Witches, and will features four different stand alone stories about witches, each from a different writer and artist. This lends a very unique perpective to the series, allowing each story to have its own art direction, story and feel.

 

 

 

The first comic of the series is “The Magic Swan Goose and the Lord of the Forest” by S.M Vidaurri. It is the tale of a little princess whose brother, who is about to be crowned king, is kidnapped off into an enchanted forest by a witch. In her efforts to rescue him she faces many obstacles and comes to meet the Lord of the Forest himself, but in an enchanted forest is everything as it seems?

 

LordForest

The truly lovely thing about this comic, is that it doesn’t read like a comic. It reads like a treasured book of fairy tales from your childhood. The story is told entirely in the third person narrative, which really reinforces the storybook feel. The art, too, is drawn and colored like a fairytale, and is absolutely gorgeous. Each panel looks more like a painting than a comic book page. Since Vidaurri both wrote and drew the comic, it has a wonderful cohesive feel. The script itself is written into the story. Rather than using typical speech bubbles, the words themselves are art. They are a part of the illustrations and even change scripts type to fit the words and scenes (albiet it was a bit tricky to read on a computer). For a hardcore Henson fan, it was wonderful. It absolutely felt like the old show.

storytellerThe storytelling feels refreshing. A lot of comics these days tend towards dark, complicated plots with massive worlds behind them, grit and gore. Having stand alone comic that read like an old fairy tale was like a breathe of fresh air. That is not to say the story is without depth, I did find the story surprising me here and there, it was just nice to have a good story without the grit and darkness. If you are a Henson fan, a fantasy fan or lover of fairy tales, you will read this comic and immediately find yourself wanting more (prepare for feelings of nostalgia and warm fuzzies). As a huge Henson fan, (and person with slight witch obsession) the idea that the next one will have a totally new artist and feel is absolutely intriguing. I am terribly excited for this series, and highly recommend it.

 

Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Witches #01 is now available from Boom! Comics

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